Dreamscape
by fbeauchamphartz
Summary: Sebastian Smythe is "recruited" by the U. S. Government into a project that uses psychics like himself to enter people's dreams and cure them of their nightmares. Dr. Kurt Hummel, himself an empath, is not at all impressed by Sebastian's abilities. And someone else has an eye to use Kurt's 'dream therapy' for more nefarious purposes. Kurt H. Sebastian S.
1. Prologue

**A/N:** _Here's the full summary - Snarky, conceited Sebastian Smythe is "recruited" by the U. S. Government into a project that uses psychics like himself to enter people's dreams and cure them of their nightmares. The scientists running the study are Dr. Kurt Hummel, himself an empath, who's not at all impressed by Sebastian's abilities, and Dr. Jesse St. James, using this project more to further his own ambition than to actually help people. Kurt hopes his research will help soldiers suffering from PTSD overcome their nightmares and so they can better readjust to civilian life, but someone else has an eye on Kurt's project, an interest in using 'dream therapy' for a far more nefarious purpose._

 _Story includes Will Schuester as the President of the United States, Emma as his wife, their son, Finn, Sebastian Smythe, Jesse St. James, Kurt Hummel, Sue Sylvester, Santana Lopez, Noah Puckerman, Dave Karofsky, Blaine Anderson._

 _AU, featuring psychics, nightmares, violence, sexual content, implied Sebtana, past!Kurt Hummel/Jesse St. James, Dark!Blaine._

 _Inspired by the movie "Dreamscape"._

 _Warning - this chapter includes an intense nightmare that involves the possible death of a character._

"Will! Will!"

Her voice is faint, only an echo, but it knocks inside Will's brain like an avalanche because she shouldn't be screaming. She shouldn't even be awake.

And she shouldn't sound scared to death.

"Emma!" Will's blood-shot eyes open wide as he searches for his wife, but that doesn't matter. No matter how wide his eyes, he can't see a thing. He doesn't understand. She was next to him. Right next to him. They were lying in bed asleep seconds ago and they were fine. They were safe. He still feels safe, but _she's_ not. He reaches out a hand to touch her, but she's not there. Where did she go? "Emma! Where are you?"

"Will!"

He hears a stumble, rocks kicked forward, a grunt as Emma almost falls.

"Please, Will! Wait!"

The piercing cry of their infant son - only three months old last Thursday - follows his wife's terrified scream. It shreds through the cortex of Will Schuester's brain, striking into the primal core of him, triggering his instinct to defend and protect. But the world in front of his eyes has turned black, and even as she yells for him, sounding closer, louder, he can't see her.

"Will! Wait!"

"Emma!" Will turns in the direction of her voice, the grim image of a city in ruins becoming clearer as his eyes adjust, coming in to focus bit by bit before him. Then he sees her. She's only a shadow at first, a familiar silhouette in the nearly non-existent light, racing after him. There's a bright white flash and he she's there, her hair shining bright like copper, their son clutched against her chest, swaddled in the blue blanket she spent nine months crocheting. Will sees her face - her eyes frantic, her lips twisted. She's screaming and running, frightened for her life, petrified beyond anything that Will has ever seen.

The white flash leaves behind an orange glow charging at her from the horizon. It's organic in the way it moves, growing, swallowing the skyline, stampeding their way at a phenomenal speed.

"Emma!" Will screams, but with the wave of light comes a terrible roar, and the sound of his voice barely makes it past his lips. "Finn!"

She stumbles again. For an instant, only her toes touch the ground, and the tops of her feet scrape the cement, but she keeps running, bare feet bloodied as they pound the concrete. She holds baby Finn tight to her bosom, fighting the air around her to catch up with her husband - air that's getting hotter and thicker. Above them, the sky has become a terminal void, as if something has extinguished the sun. Ash starts to fall around them like snow, flakes drifting down from nowhere, dissolving on contact with skin. A distinct burning odor accompanies it - chemical, scorching the oxygen Will's breathing, eating it up before it enters his lungs.

"Will!" Emma yells as the gap between them grows. She reaches out a hand, hoping that Will can take it. Her arm shakes, weakened by the lack of breathable air. Her eyes begin to bulge in their sockets, and Will can tell she's already begun to succumb.

From the stillness of the small body in her arms, Finn might have already.

"No!" Will lunges for his wife and son with the strength left in him, determined to get to them, but he can't. He's moving too swiftly backward. He's not running. Why is he pulling away so fast?

He registers voices talking, overlapping, calling him by name, piling up as Emma in her white nightgown becomes a ghost in the cloud of ash. He tries to get up but his body is pinned to the ground. He struggles, seething with anger, willing to fight even when his last breath is gone.

A secondary flash illuminates the void, and fleetingly everything around him becomes visible. He's in a subway car – pitted, rusted, pockmarked walls disintegrating before his eyes. He's lying on the floor inside an open door, the exit surrounded by a swinging metal chain, batting him back from his one path of escape. Regardless of his current predicament, despite the hopelessness of his circumstances, he reaches for Emma and Finn.

 _There's still a chance,_ he thinks, tapping into faith. He's always been short on faith, but Emma has faith for both of them. She _is_ his faith, his strength _. As long as they're alive, God help me, there has to be a way!_

But whoever's holding him refuses to give him the chance to find it.

The hands on his body, effectively flattening him to the ground every time he tries to stand, belong to men and women in black suits - members of the Secret Service. There was a time when Will admired his security detail very much, but not now. Not when they're keeping him from rescuing his family, when they're not lifting a finger to help.

"Let me go!" he growls. He throws punches, kicks his legs, but every time he does another set of hands appears to keep him trapped in place.

"Can't do that, Mr. President," one of the suited people say. Will doesn't know which person; he doesn't see their mouths move. "Our job is to deliver you immediately to the bunker."

"But my wife and son!" Will cries in a panic. "They're part of the evacuation protocol!"

"I'm sorry, sir. There's nothing we can do for them now."

Will stares out the open subway door, at a figure so distant he can't make out her features, can't see her mouth move when she screams or her arm reaching out to him for help. The cloud of fire rushes after her, dissolving buildings and cars in its wake. In a blink, it catches up to her, threatening to engulf her.

"Emma!"

She opens her mouth to call his name one more time, but the wave of flame covers her. Will sees his wife and son as a flare of cinders, and then they're gone.

"No!" he screams, his voice gone, the thunderous cacophony from outside drowning him out. He screams his throat dry, screams himself hoarse. Hands drag him back into the subway car and the metal door slams shut, plunging them into darkness.

"Emma! Emma, no!"

Will shoots up, springing almost to his feet, his mind still bound to the nightmare of the post-apocalyptic city even though the room around him has changed, the walls of the subway car transforming into those of his bedroom. The roar in his ears dulls to the _thumpthumpthump_ of blood rushing to his brain. His body aches, desperate for oxygen, and he realizes he's been holding his breath. He breathes in deep and fast, trying to revive his numb hands and feet. His pajamas, soaked with sweat, stick to him, adding to the terror of being suffocated. His heart, thudding irregularly, pounds hard, his body vibrating with it.

"Will? Will?" A sleepy voice speaks to him. Gentle hands shake him. "Will? Wake up. You're having a nightmare."

"Emma?" Will looks at his wife's face, concerned but whole, not singed, not frightened, very much alive. "Oh, Emma!"

"Will." She puts a hand to his cheek. He grabs it and kisses it, rubbing his lips over her palm, relieved to see her, to touch her. "You look like you've seen a ghost!" she says. "Are you alright?"

Will presses Emma's palm to his cheek and nods. "I am now."

"Will, honey. You're sweating," Emma remarks. "And you were screaming." Emma anxiously places a hand to her husband's chest and her jaw drops. "Your heart is racing! That's dangerous, Will. We should call the doctor."

There's a knock at the door - two short raps followed by a long one – and it opens without Will saying a word. A husky figure in grey slacks, matching vest, and a white button down shirt stands in the doorway, peering in.

"Mr. President," the man says, keeping his eyes to Will's face, showing respect for The First Lady by not looking at her in her nightgown. "I heard you scream. Is everything alright?"

"Yes," Will says, inhaling a breath of calm. "Everything's fine, Sheldon. It was just a nightmare."

"Should we call your physician in, Mr. President?"

Will sees Emma nod her head in agreement, honey-colored eyes pleading with her husband to listen to reason and order his bodyguard to make the call.

Will wants to allay her fears, but he can't be away from her. Not tonight. Not after that.

"No," he says, "I'm fine." He smiles, kissing his wife's hands when she gasps to object.

"Will…" she begs.

"I'm _fine_ ," he stresses, turning his attention to the man standing at the door, waiting for an order. "Thank you, Sheldon. I'm sorry if I alarmed you."

"It's okay, Mr. President. No harm done," Sheldon says, pulling the door closed, not thrilled at President Schuester's decision to forgo calling a doctor…again. "Just holler if you need anything."

"I will, Sheldon. Thank you."

The door clicks shut and Sheldon walks down the hall, leaving the President alone to face his wife.

"Please, Will. I really think you should let Sheldon call the doctor."

"I'm fine. I promise. I just need to hold you." He wraps his arms around Emma, pulling her to him, resting his head on her shoulder. "I need to know that you're alright." Will grins. "Then I'm going to go wake up the baby."

"William Schuster!" Emma gasps, punishing him with a shove. "Don't you _dare_! It's three o'clock in the morning!"

Will grabs one of Emma's hands and kisses it, breathing in the scent of the hand sanitizer that she uses religiously, the antibacterial body cream he bought her for Christmas, and the special organic hypoallergenic baby lotion they order from The Honest Co. in bulk for their baby, Finn.

A baby who is happy and healthy, asleep in his nursery, who will grow big and strong, and may someday become President himself. Or join the Army, or become an actor or a Spanish teacher or the head of a high school Glee club. Whatever he wants. Will wants his son to have the world, and he happens to be in a position to give that to him.

The whole world is looking to him at this pivotal time, not only in his nation's history, but the history of countries across the globe. But if these nightmares he's been having night after night are any indication, he might be on the brink of fucking up – and fucking up royally.

Another World War would be one hell of a fuck up.

A nuclear war – that could mean the end of everything.

He watches his wife's smile fade and Will chuckles, kissing her on the nose, on the cheek, then on the neck. It works and she laughs with him, play fighting to push him away.

Will holds on tight. He feels guilty. His wife has always been too easy to fool.

"You're still not waking up that baby, Will Schuester," Emma scolds, pulling him back into bed. He hovers over her, dropping light kisses on her eyelids as she giggles, looping her arms around his neck.

"Sweetheart, I'm the President of the United States," Will says, closing in on her lips. "Who's going to stop me?"


	2. Chapter 1

"His name is Sebastian Smythe."

Dr. Jesse St. James places a blue manila folder on the table in front of Kurt. Kurt should be impressed. A _blue_ _folder_ project. The division of the United States Federal Government that Kurt contracts with uses blue folders to distinguish extremely classified information from regular, not-as-classified but still secret information. Kurt finds that funny. Why bother with the difference? Why put sensitive material in an alternate color folder? Doesn't that _announce_ the fact that it's classified? Doesn't that defeat the purpose? And why blue? If they don't care who knows that the information inside the file is classified, why not make it pink then? Or neon green?

Kurt is tempted to make a comment, but he's not sure other participants in this briefing would find it as amusing as he does. Besides him and Dr. St. James, the one other person in the room, sitting a few rows behind him and a level above him, has already scowled at him twice, and they've only been seated for five minutes. Kurt's not sure _who_ she is exactly, just that she has a vested interest in their research. She didn't bother introducing herself, but he heard Jesse address her as _Sue_. Whoever she is, she doesn't look like she has a sense of humor.

Kurt, likewise, has little humor or patience for government funded projects, and yet he always seems to find himself hip-deep in them. If he didn't believe in his work so profoundly, he'd walk away and get a regular teaching job at a normal university.

Of course, as the cliché goes, he's already seen too much. In lieu of his 401K, the government might send a sniper to assassinate him. One day, he could be walking out of Starbucks with his venti non-fat mocha, and the next, he's a smudge on the pavement. Maybe he's overreacting, but he's always gotten an uneasy feeling getting involved in government projects, things with names like Silent Sparrow or Juggernaut, like they're paying him to fight super villains instead of conducting studies on the correlation between PTSD related sleep disorders and depression, specifically in American soldiers. This study might advance new, more effective types of therapy that soldiers suffering from PTSD could receive, thus helping them overcome the harrowing effects of war while they readjust to civilian life.

Kurt wishes it didn't require getting into bed with the military, so to speak.

He opens the folder, which is full to bursting, and scans quickly through the contents. Pictures, reports, physical exam results, test scores, each topped with the exact same name - Sebastian Smythe. Kurt looks from one photo – a picture of a boy about ten-years-old, wearing a green soccer jersey, white shorts, and knee-high socks, one cleated foot resting on a soccer ball in a generic sports-related pose as he smiles exuberantly for the camera – to the image that fills the flat screen. It's the same boy, but in the video he's a teenager. It looks like he's wearing some kind of prep school uniform - blue blazer, a calligraphy letter D embroidered on the breast pocket, red-and-blue striped necktie knotted beneath the collar of a crisp, white button down shirt. Meticulously swept coffee-colored hair falls over his forehead, stopping right above his eyebrows. Piercing green eyes peer down at a silver ball sitting in the center of a map of concentric circles. Kurt watches the silver ball wiggle, then roll without Sebastian touching it. Sebastian's eyes flick up to the camera, the slyest hint of a smile curling his lips. He gazes out from the television screen straight at Kurt, and Kurt shifts in his seat uncomfortably, as if this recorded image from the past can see him.

The term "life ruiner" finally makes sense to Kurt. This young man about has that covered in his roguish smirk alone. It's almost ridiculous how attractive this kid is, and he probably knows it, too.

Kurt scolds himself for leering like a dirty old man, even if he is only twenty-six.

"This video was taken when we first found Sebastian," Dr. St. James explains. "I worked with him personally for about two years. We stumbled across him while a couple of our researchers were overseeing Mensa testing at a private school in Westerville, Ohio - Dalton Academy." Jesse glances back at the screen, at the protégé he once thought would become his claim to fame, maybe even help win him a Nobel Prize. Jesse had been right. Sebastian Smythe did get him noticed - but not for the reason he'd intended.

Sebastian became Jesse's ticket to infamy.

Because of Sebastian Smythe, everybody in the scientific community knows the cautionary tale of the once great Dr. Jesse St. James, leading researcher in the field of parapsychology, a specialty that had originally been considered _junk science_ but was well on its way to being the next great discovery. Jesse touted the potential of the human brain with regard to psychic abilities – abilities, Jesse claimed, every human possessed in varying degrees - with Sebastian as his flesh and blood indicator of success…until Jesse's big screw up. He lost everything, became a pariah, even in the field of clinical psychology. The story of his epic failure blew up on social media overnight, and he was shamed into resigning.

Of all his former colleagues, associates, and students, Kurt Hummel is the only one among them who still gives Jesse the time of day - and doesn't act conceited about it. Jesse owes Kurt more than he can ever repay. He helped Jesse get back some of his credibility. Without Kurt's pull, Jesse wouldn't even be present at this meeting.

"Sebastian is an authentic genius," Jesse continues. "Incredibly crude, but exceptionally gifted. Telekinesis is but _one_ of his talents."

Kurt smiles, wondering if Jesse meant to make that sound as suggestive as he did, and if so, for whose benefit?

Kurt leans forward, narrowing his eyes at the man grinning smugly as the silver ball continues to follow the lines of the circles printed on the page without him having to look down to track it.

"I remember hearing about him," Kurt says, pressing a button on the remote in front of him and freezing the image, that smirk permanently plastered in his brain. "This ability that he has, it caused quite a controversy. Everybody wanted him. You guys got offers from think tanks, the military, even from foreign governments."

"We did," Jesse says, prouder than he deserves to be.

Kurt flips through the reports, searching out one in specific. "It says here that some unnamed terrorist organization tried to kidnap him?"

"Yeah." Jesse laughs. "They didn't get close to him, thank God, but three different groups took credit for the attempt. That made matters worse."

"Because you needed to place him in a more secure facility?" Kurt guesses, skimming through the report.

"Because knowing that someone wanted him so badly that they would risk breaking into one of our maximum security facilities to snag him gave him a huge head, and he was already a tremendous pain in the ass." Jesse sifts through the stack of reports in Kurt's folder and pulls one out. He sets it on top, tapping the cover page to bring it to Kurt's attention. "This is his psychological evaluation. Snarky, conceited, utterly self-important, constantly throwing the weight of his father's job around, which was actually really sad considering his father up and left him. Disowned him."

"Why?" Kurt asks, going back through the reports and stopping on another picture – a family portrait, taken when Sebastian was younger than the soccer photo, maybe five or six. Sebastian with his mother and father, sitting on a red velvet upholstered sofa in front of a lavish fireplace, an extravagantly decorated Christmas tree beside them to their right. Sebastian sits between them, grinning with pearly baby teeth showing, so wide that the apples of his cheeks push his eyelids closed, reducing his glittering green eyes to slits. His mother glows in her red Dolce and Gabbana lace dress, her hands resting lightly on her son's shoulders. His father, wearing an exquisitely tailored Armani suit, sits an appropriate distance apart from his wife and son, his expression stern but with an otherwise kind face. Sebastian seemed to inherit his overall facial structure – his cheekbones, his nose, his prominent brow – from his father, but his moss-colored eyes and wavy brown hair are definitely his mother's. They look like the American dream – a loving, happy, affluent family.

At least, that's the impression that Kurt gets. At the time this photo was taken, it might have been true.

"His father's a state attorney," Jesse says. "Said he didn't want his son if he was a freak, didn't need that ruining his career."

"Is that why Sebastian disappeared? Up and left you guys right in the middle of it?" Kurt asks, disheartened on Sebastian's behalf. Kurt might not have had the cheeriest upbringing, and his family definitely didn't have anything close to the Smythe family's obvious wealth, but Kurt had the benefit of a father who never gave up on him - not when he discovered his son was an empath, and not when Kurt came out to him as gay.

"Some people thought so," Jesse says, "but I didn't. Sebastian longed to have his dad's approval, for sure, but there was really no love lost between them. No, Sebastian wanted his freedom. He didn't like being locked away, poked and prodded."

"Yeah," Kurt says in a sympathetic tone, rubbing his left hand over his right, subconsciously covering the pinprick scars on the back of his hand. "I know how he feels."

"A shame, too." Jesse's eyes move back to the face on the screen. "Months of study and parapsychological testing went down the tubes when he left." He sighs, the sound falling somewhere between frustration and regret. "We were really getting somewhere, too."

"Oh, can we quit it with the whining and the tragic backstory, and get down to business?" their silent observer, Sue Sylvester, butts in. "You're making my teeth hurt."

Jesse's gaze follows the voice, his eyes falling on the conceited face of the older blonde woman wearing a black Nike track suit, one leg crossed with her right ankle resting on her left knee, looking simultaneously eager to continue and bored out of her mind.

"He'd be about twenty-five now," Jesse says, his voice tight. "He's insanely smart. He speaks multiple languages fluently, picks them up at the drop of a hat, but he's particular to French. He's also musically adept, plays the piano like a virtuoso." Rifling through more photographs, Kurt sees Sebastian at the age of twelve, dressed in a black tuxedo, standing beside a grand piano; at the age of fifteen, performing on stage in what looks like a rendition of _West Side Story_ ; at the age of sixteen, standing on stage again, this time with a group of high school age boys, all wearing that prep school uniform from the video. Embossed white script at the bottom right corner of the photo reads, "Dalton Academy Warblers – Eastern Regionals". Kurt smiles. Kurt had sang in show choir and performed in school musicals before he was "discovered", too. "He's a consummate thrill seeker. When he's not bending spoons or blowing things up with his mind, he's jumping out of planes or swimming with sharks. Even though his father disowned him, he managed to _liberate_ his trust fund. He has more money than Midas and doesn't believe in American financial institutions, which is one of the reasons it's so hard to find him. He's not going to be working the day shift at the supermarket or pumping gas at the 7-11, and we can't exactly track his ATM history."

"His profile says that he has a propensity for medicine," Kurt reads.

"Yes, but you won't find him playing doctor, either. That's a bit too, shall we say, _humanitarian_ for him."

"He's perfect," Sue says, closing her file and dropping it on her desk loudly for dramatic effect, but also to squash any other comment Jesse might have that could be seen as an argument against her plan. "I want him."

Kurt turns and stares with irritation at the woman making demands in regards to his study. It's one thing for the government to constantly look over his shoulder, asking him the same questions over and over, forcing him to justify his process. But to try and control how he conducts his research, that's another thing altogether.

"We'll invite him to participate like everyone else," Kurt says, speaking slowly to make himself understood. "If he agrees, we'll test him, evaluate him to see if he's a good fit…"

"I don't think you get it," Sue says, uncrossing her legs and glaring at Kurt contemptuously. "I'm not giving him a choice."

"What do you intend to do?" Kurt demands. "Kidnap him? Blackmail him? Our test subjects are _volunteers_. They go through extensive testing to ensure that they're a match for our study – mentally, psychologically, physically…" He counts these off on his fingers to emphasize his point. "And to be quite frank, from the look of Sebastian's profile, I don't think he's going to qualify. He's not exactly what you'd call a _team player_."

It disappoints Kurt to admit it, but as intrigued as he is by this man and as much as he would love to meet him, Kurt has to be practical. The integrity of the work they're doing must come first…no matter what else Kurt might want.

"Quite frankly, Dr. Hummel, I don't care what you think."

Kurt grinds his teeth, stopping himself before he says something he might regret. "Look, I don't know who you are or what your agenda is…"

"You're right," she says, shutting Kurt's protest down. "You don't, and you don't need to know."

"I won't allow it," Kurt argues, raising his voice unintentionally. Kurt prides himself on his patience. Working with military and bureaucratic ignoramuses has made him an expert in dumbing down when necessary. But something about this woman – this egregious woman - riles him to no end. "I won't have you interfering in my study."

"You seem to forget that it's not _your_ study, Dr. Hummel," she retorts coolly. "Not while the U. S. Government is footing the bill." Sue pointedly stares at Jesse, relaying a silent warning, unvoiced but clearly understood. "I want Sebastian Smythe to be part of this study."

Dr. St. James looks at Kurt. Kurt is sitting at the edge of his seat, his hands balled into fists, ready to rail against this, Sue Sylvester and whatever authority she has be damned. Then Jesse looks at Sue – calm, unconcerned, with a confidence that comes from knowing that she has the power to get her way. A wash of immense guilt fills Jesse head to toe because he knows he has to side with her. Yes, Jesse owes his appointment entirely to Kurt, but Kurt has plateaued. With all his experience, he's still a lab rat. His devotion to the project, though admirable, won't get him any recognition. Choosing battles carefully and siding with the right people are key to winning awards.

And there's one on the horizon that Jesse wants more than anything. He swore to himself he was going to get, and he's not about to let anything stand in his way.

Aside from that, Kurt can be a little naïve. Ironically, it's his own psychic ability, lesser developed than Sebastian's, that probably makes him this way. Kurt fights hard not to read other people's emotions. Whereas people like Sebastian use theirs to gain an upper-hand, Kurt has always seen it as an unfair advantage. He has become more skilled at blocking his natural abilities than using them, and tends to take everyone he meets at face value. He categorizes people in neatly ordered columns of good or bad, with only a thin grey line in between.

But Jesse has worked with people like Sue Sylvester far longer than Kurt. He knows there's something going on, something they're not being told.

Something that would make the talents of an empath very useful right about now, but there's no way Jesse can think to tell Kurt that while underneath the eye of Sue Sylvester.

"Yes, you're right," Jesse admits, swallowing hard to keep down the last vestiges of his lunch. "Sebastian _would_ be perfect. If we could find him."

"And _if_ we can control him," Kurt adds with unchecked spite. He doesn't take politely to being told off, but he also knows from the notes Jesse showed him prior to this meeting how volatile a creature Sebastian Smythe is. They'd be setting themselves up for failure by involving him; Kurt is sure of that.

"Well, that's why you're here, princess," Sue condescends, looking down her nose at Kurt, her vicious smile belittling him without a word needed. "If he's alive, my people will find him. And then you, Dr. Hummel, get the super-fun task of keeping him in line."

"How exactly do you recommend I do that?" Kurt snaps, bristling at being called _princess_. It hits too close to home for his taste. He's a grown adult – a doctor, for fuck's sake. It offends him on multiple levels that he's being bullied like a high school freshman.

"That's not my problem," she says, standing from her seat and gathering up the documents in her file. "Buy him a collar and a leash. I have you figured for the kind of guy who enjoys that type of thing."

" _Excuse_ me?"

"And with my connections, I can find out." She tucks the file underneath her arm. "Anyway, I can't waste any more time discussing this. You have your orders, gentlemen, and I have a hycolonic at four." She nods at them. "Dr. St. James. Dr. Hummel."

She turns before any other arguments can be raised, walks up the stairs of the conference room, and out the door. Both men wait to hear the door click shut before they move or breathe or say anything at all. Then they wait a few seconds more.

Kurt turns on Jesse with disbelief and disgust, shaking his head. Jesse shrugs in a defeated _there's-nothing-we-can-do_ sort of way.

Kurt scoffs at his friend's reluctance, at how easily he intends to fold. "I really don't like that woman," he says, bolting from his chair and packing up his things.

"I don't like her either," Jesse agrees, "but I don't think we have a choice. If we want to keep our funding, we'll have to play her game."

"I don't like playing games," Kurt growls, shoving his file back together, documents and pictures sticking out every which way. "I didn't study science to _play games_. I do what I do to help people. That's what this project is about."

"This project is still about _that_ ," Jesse says, putting his hands on Kurt's shoulders, massaging gently, employing his fail-safe tactic to get Kurt to calm down. "That's not going to change. But with Sebastian on board, we might get some attention, get more funding, maybe even enough to extend your research for the next five to seven years."

Kurt stops fumbling with the file and lets it drop back down to the desk.

"Five to seven years?" Kurt hadn't considered that, hadn't even thought about the possible positives of bringing Sebastian into their fold while he was defending his project and nursing his wounded pride.

"Yup," Jesse whispers behind Kurt's ear, placing a kiss where his word absorbs into Kurt's skin. "Five to seven years. Think of it. Think of the outreach, the possibility of bringing our services to V.A. hospitals across the continent."

"Five to seven years," Kurt repeats, unable to comprehend how aligning themselves with that boorish woman might bring about something so tremendous. Kurt's project is slated to continue for the next two years maximum. Five to seven years – that could make a significant difference in the lives of thousands as opposed to the mere hundreds they are currently working to help. "What do I do? I don't think I can work with Sue Sylvester. The next time I see her, I might drop a house on her head."

"Just let me handle her," Jesse says, running a hand down the length of Kurt's arm, wrapping another around his waist, closing in on his neck, on that one spot that makes Kurt agree to anything. "I'll deal with Sue, and you train Sebastian."

" _If_ she finds him."

"Oh, she will," Jesse laughs, breathing Kurt in before he makes his move. "I have no doubt that Sue Sylvester will find Sebastian. You'll tame him, make him a part of the project, then presto." Jesse's breath brushes Kurt's neck, and Kurt moves, knocked out of his daydream of making their services available to American soldiers deployed across the globe by the anticipation of Jesse's lips on his skin.

Kurt shoves his file folder into his messenger bag and slips the strap onto his shoulder, pulling out of Jesse's embrace.

"I appreciate everything you're doing," Kurt says. He leans in close, eyes firmly locked on Jesse's, leaving room for no misunderstandings. "But I'm not going to sleep with you."


	3. Chapter 2

Sebastian leans forward, intuitive green eyes focused on the roulette table, the ball whizzing around the wheel, bouncing from slot to slot, the numbers flashing before his eyes – _1, 28, 30, 19, 36, 7, 17…_ Sebastian narrows his thoughts, pinpoints his target, follows the sphere in front of him, reading it the way he reads everything else – as if it has a mind, a pulse, a will so that he can impose his own and make it bend to his whim, give him what he wants. He blocks out the racket around him - the minds screaming out for attention, the emotions welling up inside him that don't belong to him, the clinking of glasses a table away, the scent of perfume right under his nose (something by Dior, heady with honey and musk, maybe _Poison_ , he doesn't know, but it's making him hard as a fucking rock, mixed with the aroma of Whiskey Highball, arousal, and just plain sex from the sultry brunette pressed beside him), and about a hundred other sights, sounds, and smells that could derail his carefully constructed plan of attack – if he were anyone other than Sebastian Smythe.

But for Sebastian, self-proclaimed but still undefeated king of the hustle, the unguarded universe whittles away till only three things remain - the sound of the chips, the roll of the ball, and the excitement of the crowd. _This_ is what Sebastian lives for.

Sebastian doesn't really see what he does as hustling, though, since he considers anything he wants as already his. This casino he's scamming thousands from is simply holding the money for him, and rolling a die or betting on the spin of a wheel is just a matter of inconvenience. That might come across as condescending (if he actually gave a fuck) but he feels he exists on a different plane from the common folk. On the evolutionary chain, he's up a link or two…or seven. Where other people might accuse him of taking unfair advantage of his privilege, he sees it as collecting his due.

Sebastian eyes his chips on the table, stacked neatly in columns, sitting on his last bet that nearly doubled his lot – red. The dealer gathers the chips together, stacks them higher, then sweeps them across the table toward Sebastian, but Sebastian puts up a hand in a pretentious gesture to stop him.

"Alright," Sebastian says, rubbing his hands together, gaze hopping over the numbers, giving the betters at the table the impression that he's trying to guess the next lucky one. Sebastian doesn't need to guess, and he doesn't need luck. He has something much more reliable on his side - himself. His own highly-attuned abilities. But still, he likes to make a performance out of it. He craves the attention. If not, he'd play the tables at one of the smaller casinos on the strip, win in five minutes, then leave. He'd sit on a stool at an Indian casino and pull the lever on a slot machine until he drained it, or do the online betting thing in his underwear. But breaking the bank at a big name place like Caesars, that's where the real excitement is.

Sebastian grins, soaking up the anticipation of the people around him. What will he do? Will he bet again? Will he cut his losses? Decisions, decisions.

Of course, Sebastian has already seen this scenario three steps ahead. It's a new perk he's discovered, this minor foray into predicting the future, and he's happy to make the most of it.

"I'm all in," he says. "Straight up on black 35."

He could have taken this party to the big tables in the back room, where he could easily bet ten grand a spin and really make a killing, but he'd lose most of his audience. Besides, he doesn't need _that_ kind of attention. He's trying to stay under the radar, if possible. Lots of small bets, a few hefty losses in between, getting frustrated and switching tables, acting the diva until he finds one with the "right feel".

But he kind of screwed the pooch on this last one. He knows this is going to have to be his final spin if he wants to leave with his kneecaps intact.

The dealer smiles as he pushes Sebastian's stack of chips – close to $6,000 total – to his selected spot on the table, crowding them over the black circle with the number 35 inside. They don't all fit, and neither do the chips from other betters who are riding on the back of this man's success. Ten straight wins in a row doesn't easily go unnoticed, so either this guy's really lucky, or really smart – which actually makes him really stupid. No one swindles the house and walks away without a scratch. And even if the ball falls on black 35, he's probably not leaving the casino with all that money.

"All in on black 35," the dealer repeats with a forced smile. "Place your bets, everyone. Place your bets."

A few more people throw their chips on the table, most of them on different numbers, hoping for the fallout when this high roller's luck finally runs out.

Sebastian doesn't actually give a shit if he wins or not. He doesn't need the money. He's already got more money than he'll ever need. He _wants_ the thrill.

People on the fence start pitching their chips in as the dealer releases the ball. There's a lot of talk – arguments and negotiations, and in his mind, Sebastian hears them all – not just their words, but their thoughts.

 _"Please, God, if I win this one, I'm going back to college, I swear."_

 _"Come on, come on, come on, come on! Motherfucker's got to lose sometime. Make it now!"_

 _"If Margaret finds out I lost the rent for this month again, she'll take the kids."_

 _"Look up. Look up just once, and see me."_

That last one stops him, hits him in the gut hard and resonates throughout his body. It sounds out of place, indifferent to the spectacle of greed going on around them, and so full of longing, but just as he's about to look up and find the source of that thought, the curvy brunette at his side, the one he's already labeled as his "next big mistake", loops an arm through his and holds on.

"Come on, baby," she cheers, jumping up and down excitedly, purposefully rubbing against him as she does. "Black 35! Woo-hoo!" The swell of her bouncing breasts brushes his skin, and that one forlorn voice zaps straight from his brain.

The ball falls from the track to the wheel, and the dealer announces, "No more bets."

Sebastian watches the ball bounce between the slots, a fierce intensity filling his eyes, but he tries to play off like any other hopeful schlub, crossing his fingers and making ridiculous deals with God. Around the table, people lean in anxiously, fingers crossed with him, praying that the ball falls on their number.

But it won't. It's going to fall on Sebastian's.

Sebastian knows that for a fact.

The ball stops suddenly, stops dead, and the dealer doesn't know whether to laugh or groan when he calls it. "Black 35."

Cheers travel around the table. People reach over to pat Sebastian on the back, as much to congratulate him as to try and snag a little bit of his luck for themselves.

Sebastian feels more than _their_ eyes on him, knows that silent signals are traveling around the room.

He's been made.

He smiles.

This is where the fun begins.

"I'm cashing out," he says to the dealer. "I feel like this wheel's run itself dry."

"Oh, you're not leaving are you?" Sebastian smiles at the seductive pout of the woman beside him, still latched on, clutching his arm, her fingers laced with his. If he didn't luck out finding this table, he definitely lucked out finding her.

But he can't really waste time right now sealing the deal on this one.

He'd rather take his time with her.

He does a quick sweep of her mind to find out who she is, where she lives, when he's going to see her again…and finds himself pulling up short. His brow draws, his eyelids narrow, and he performs another subtle sweep, but he can't read her at all. She's a void to him; he picks up nothing, as if she's not even standing there.

 _Huh…_

She bites her lower lip – pristine white teeth pinching plump, blood red painted skin. She scooches in closer, and Sebastian finds himself scorned for an answer. But with the cacophony of thoughts punctuating his brain, luring his attention away, he figures he must be suffering from sensory overload, and writes this one off as a loss. It's happened once or twice before, but not since he was a teenager.

"Always quit while you're ahead, darling," he says with a wink, a bit overused but effective since she giggles and looks up at his through thick, long lashes, and he knows he has her. He could have her anywhere in this casino. He picks one of his $100 chips off the table, kisses it, and tucks it into the woman's cleavage. "That's for good luck. You hold on to it for me."

The woman gives him the sexiest side-eye she can manage, tugging conspicuously on the waistline of her top to drop her neckline another few inches, letting more of her ample cleavage show. On most nights that would work for him.

But not tonight. Maybe some other time. _Fuck!_

His growing erection throbs untimely, especially when thoughts like, _"There! He's over there! That one, in the green polo, talking up the skank! Move in, now!"_ flood his head. They're still far off – one or two men on the floor, the rest somewhere above them in a control room barking commands into earpieces, but still enough to cramp his style if they catch up to him.

Sebastian grabs his duffel bag of chips and throws the strap over his shoulder. The dealer took his sweet time changing out the chips – probably on purpose. Sebastian will barely make it if he walks through the crowd and out the front door, forget getting his car from the valet.

Thank God it's a rental, checked out to Mr. Sandy Ryerson of Columbus, Ohio.

Sebastian could feel guilty for trying to pin this kind of heist on his high school drama teacher – and a substitute at that – but, to be fair, Sandy Ryerson was a below par teacher _and_ a drug dealer. Not that Sebastian cared that he was peddling weed to teenagers, but the stuff he sold was shit. Plus, rumor had it, he's a pedophile, so if law enforcement hasn't already made it to his doorstep, it would serve him right if they showed up there eventually.

Sebastian blows past a row of gamblers, some turning to get their last congrats in, some scowling in his face, but one couple tugs him back when he hears a woman say, "I thought you were going out for ice. I was looking all over for you." And her husband's answering thought of, _"Everything. I lost everything. Now what am I supposed to do?"_

Sebastian stops in front of the worried looking woman, standing with her arms crossed, wearing a ratty, faded red sweatshirt and hole-ridden Levi jeans, and says, "Margaret?"

The woman looks at Sebastian, a surprised smile widening her lips.

"Yes?"

"I hate to be the one to tell you, but your man's betting the rent again. My advice…" He hands her a $1,000 chip from his bag, "take the kids and leave."

Sebastian races off to the sound of, "What!?" "Now, Maggy…" and a resounding slap that fills Sebastian with a sense of absurd satisfaction as he ducks through a door to the lobby, heading for the outside. But from the entry to the casino floor he sees two men in suits blocking the exits. He doesn't need to read their minds to know that they're waiting for him.

"Shit!" Sebastian mutters. He might be able to get by one, but not the pair of them. He turns around to go back the way he came, but behind him, almost right on his heels, are two more men in suits, heading his way.

 _Go left._

He hears the thought in his mind. No, it's more like he sees it. A picture of the left entryway hall flashes into his head, and he follows it. Why not? He can't see that it will get him into any worse trouble than he's already in. Sebastian makes a dash to the left just as the two men at the front door turn their heads right and spot their cohorts walking into the lobby.

 _Another left._

An image of the door leading further into the casino, and suddenly Sebastian's not sure he's listening to the correct inner voice.

 _Trust me._

Sebastian realizes he doesn't have time to argue and runs headlong back into the lion's den.

 _Immediate right!_

Another door, an employee's only entrance. Sebastian doesn't question it. He barrels through, ignoring the sign that says, " _Authorized entry only. Warning - this door alarmed_ " because the power of the helpful voice in his head is stronger. And besides, the doors never are.

He finds himself in a narrow break room – lockers, tables, mini-fridge, microwave, flat-screen TV - and in front of him, on the opposite end, another exit.

 _Straight ahead._

The voice confirms what Sebastian already knows. _That's_ his way out. Sebastian makes a break for it, running past one stunned cocktail waitress, only half dressed, glimpsing for a second in appreciation of the black lace demi-bra she's wearing and her black thigh high stockings topped with lace to match.

 _Pay attention, please._

The voice scolds him and Sebastian chuckles. He's never really been into bossy chicks…or guys - to be honest, the voice sounds distorted so he can't really tell - but he's kind of liking this.

Sebastian bolts through the door and into the night air. He's out of the casino, still in front, but off to the far side. Cars circle the drive in front of him, limos and town cars letting their passengers off at the main double doors, and from the corner of his eye he spots those four men in suits, scanning the vehicles coming in and out, looking for him.

"There he is!" one of them yells, but Sebastian doesn't run. He keeps his mind empty, waiting, putting his trust in the person who's gotten him this far.

 _This way._

He receives an image of a black Honda sedan. His head pops up and he sees it, tinted windows shielding the identity of the driver, the vehicle itself idling across the asphalt, about three double-parked limos away. The men sprint for him, but Sebastian knows he can make it. He clutches the bag of chips to his chest and steps into the street, right as a red and black Ducati motorcycle stops him in his tracks. The rider takes off her helmet, but Sebastian already knows who it is.

"Hey, hot stuff," his busty brunette greets him, tossing a helmet his way. "Need a lift?"

Sebastian feels the other presence in his head go cold, but there's nothing Sebastian can do about his mystery savior now. He'll never reach them before the men in the suits catch up. He sees them reaching inside their jackets for whatever they're packing, and Sebastian alters his course.

He likes having two working legs.

 _Thanks for everything_ , he projects with his mind in the hopes that whoever's out there will hear. _But I'm sorry. I've got to take this ride._

"Yes, please," Sebastian says, accepting the woman's offer and leaping on the back of her bike. "What's your name, sweetheart?" She opens her mouth to answer, but Sebastian feels it – the final drop descending, like the last grain of sand in an hourglass. They've just run out of time. "It doesn't matter. Because I'm going to call you _Angel_ from now on. Go, go, go!"

Helmet barely on, the woman revs her engine and takes off like a rifle shot, leaving four furious security guards and Sebastian's disembodied voice behind.

* * *

Sebastian suspects it's close to noon when he opens his eyes. His body feels heavy – everything from his feet to his hair resistant to the idea of moving, but it's getting hot beneath the thin sheet covering his body, and overall he feels…sticky. There's an arm wrapped uncomfortably around his throat, and strands of hair in his mouth – hair that couldn't possibly belong to him. He blinks, sliding his body sideways, disentangling slowly from the arms of…somebody. He can't remember worth shit. At least, from what he can tell, he's in his own apartment. That's a good sign. His head throbs with the invading sunlight piercing his eyes, and he curses himself for not pulling the drapes shut before he went to bed.

Not that he was thinking about the drapes, not with over $350K in his duffel and a hot piece of ass climbing all over to get on him.

Which is why the need for a shower, a shave, and a glass of Jack are overwhelming right now.

Sebastian turns to the other body in his bed. Whoever she is, she's lying on her stomach, a swathe of black hair covering her face. She's completely naked, her jacket, jeans, blouse, bra, and thong littering the floor on her side of the bed. Sebastian takes advantage of the fact that she seems momentarily dead to the world to do a little investigating. He lifts the sheet she's under an inch and looks her body over. She doesn't seem to have any tattoos (none that he can see, none that he can remember). No identifying marks except for a flesh-colored patch on her upper left arm. It doesn't look like a Nicotine patch, so maybe birth control? Thank God, since he doesn't recall having any condoms in his place.

 _What an idiot_ , he thinks, inching his way out of bed, hissing when he puts his feet on the icy hardwood floor. He runs off with the one chick he couldn't even read, whose name he doesn't know, and has sex without a condom? But that's who he is, right? Just another stupid man ruled by his dick. He should have tried his luck with whoever-never in the black Sedan. Sure, it might have been a trap, but whoever that was actually saved his ass. Besides, he's burning with curiosity. He takes a moment to concentrate, tries to reach out with his mind to see if he can find that other person, using the latent trace of an image that he's kept in his brain – the one of the Honda idling on the pavement.

Nothing. Just cold, like before, standoffish. It's not that he's not communicating with the source of that voice. It's as if whoever it was put a wall up in case Sebastian tried to connect with them again.

There's another psychic somewhere in the vicinity, a psychic with a link to Sebastian's mind, and the thought of that makes him even harder than that brunette's perfume the night before.

Sebastian yawns, stretching his arms over his head, hearing his back crack as he does. He spots his iPhone sitting on the bedside table and glances at the lock screen, looking for the time. 12:23 p.m. _Fuck!_ He knew it. His stomach knows it, too. It twists and churns around empty air, starting to cramp when it finds nothing but the digested remains of three vodka tonics and about four dozen free appetizers from the casino floor.

Sebastian grabs his phone and stands up, legs creaking, joints snapping, the lingering side effects of an adrenaline rush making his head spin. He unlocks his screen as he stumbles, stiff-legged, for the bathroom, hoping that maybe his faceless guardian somehow managed to pick his brain enough to find out his phone number.

He stops in the hallway outside his bedroom when he sees he has a message – a voice message transcribed into text, eliminating the necessity of him listening to it over voicemail. A good thing since it's not a voice he particularly wants to hear. It's a message he expected, but not one he's looking forward to reading. But being the masochist he is, he opens it anyway, ready to get this over with. He hopes to use this as an anesthetic to numb him to whatever other disappointment the day is bound to bring him.

 _To: Sebastian_

 _From: Asshole Parental Figure_ (which is how he has his father's number labeled on his phone)

 _Sebastian, I wasn't even going to dignify your last phone call to your mother with a response, but you don't seem to be getting the message. I, for one, would have thought that the restraining order made our feelings very clear. So I'm going to say this one last time, and after that, I'm going to start filing harassment charges. Stay away from me, stay away from your mother. We don't want you in our lives. You have your money. If you haven't gambled it all away by now, it should be more than enough to sustain you. I will have our phone numbers changed again effective immediately. Do not use your gifts, so-called, to find the new ones._

Sebastian reads the message a second time to see if it will sting less. But it doesn't, and he throws his phone down the hallway, nailing the floor, the thing skipping and cartwheeling into the living room. Since he's got the damned thing wrapped in an OtterBox, it doesn't even have the decency to smash, and he has to keep himself from punching a wall.

Figures. The old fuckhat reads his mom's messages. Not surprising. It fits his overall megalomaniac personality. Sebastian would rather believe _that_ than think that his mother would willingly give the man access to her phone and allow him to make the decision to excommunicate her only son on her behalf.

It astounds Sebastian that he still gets amazed over just how much his father seems to hate him. At this point, Sebastian couldn't care less what his father thinks of him. That slimy sack of putrescence can rot in fucking hell for all he cares. Sebastian misses his mom. He misses her every day. But she made her choice – she chose his dad over him.

He can't help but envy the children of the Margarets of the world - the women who would rather dump an asshole husband than leave an incorrigible son behind.

Sebastian leaves his phone where it lies and hops into a shower, needing a blast of cold water to wake him up and get his mind right. He doesn't have anything planned until his next casino heist, and that strikes him as pathetic and sad. Lately, he does nothing else but hit up casinos, and when it's not the casinos, it's the track. He hasn't even gone to see Siegfried and Roy perform, and he's been living here for over a year.

Sebastian grimaces at the mess his life has become. It wasn't always this way. He had a purpose once, something he even sort of believed in, but he left it behind to be his own man. To be free.

Free to watch his life drip away between scamming casinos and…scamming casinos.

Sebastian raises his head to the spray and lets the water blast him in the face, the beating water drowning out his groans of self-loathing.

He really needs to find another hobby.

Sebastian wanders back to his bedroom, stark naked to let his skin dry in the open air. He's ready to climb back into bed for round two, but he finds his busty brunette awake, sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling on her left boot. Sebastian stops at the doorway and watches, suddenly beyond eager to know who this seductress really is. He remembers that she showed up at the roulette table in the middle of his (planned) losing streak, and latched on to him hardcore. She couldn't have known at that point that he was going to hit it big, and a lot of other guys had way more chips on the table, so why him?

He could be narcissistic and claim that it was his stunning good looks and boyish charm that drew her inexorably to him, but not here. Not in Vegas. Young, beautiful women only go after guys with big wallets out here, regardless of if they look like an Abercrombie model or like they should be eating goats and holding up bridges.

The time to get to the bottom of this mystery has long since passed, though he wouldn't object to getting his dick wet first.

"You're already dressed," Sebastian says, stating the obvious with a hint of disappointment.

"Yeah," she says, her demeanor all business. She stands and bends over to zip up her boot. "And?"

"Well, I thought you might want to go again."

She looks up at him and makes a condescending pouty face. He rolls his eyes.

"I can pay you," he offers, the realization that she might be a prostitute popping into his head.

"Normally I would, lover boy," she says with a smirk, stepping into her other boot, not seeming the least bit offended, "but I'm hungry as hell, and all you've got in your fridge is some expired milk and a box of toaster waffles."

"Don't be hatin' on toaster waffles," Sebastian says, reaching into his closet for a pair of jeans that doesn't stink like sweat, cigarette smoke, and desperation. "They're hella good."

"But you don't own a toaster," she tosses back, grabbing her jacket.

"I own a _microwave_ ," he remarks. She shoots him a disgusted look.

"Uh…no. I'm not doing that. You're going to get your ass dressed and take me out for lunch." She faces him, hands on her hips, gaze wandering over his naked body, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as she zeroes in on his half-hard cock, ogling with covetous eyes despite her demands.

"I am, huh?" Sebastian says, but he agrees, finding the need to shed his overnight guest if she's not going to get naked in the next five minutes.

"Yeah, you are," she replies, but with a peculiar urgency to the tone of her voice. Sebastian tries to casually read her mind – it's more of a habit than a conscious thought - and again comes up with nothing. He decides she's right. He needs to get her out of his apartment. This isn't an anomaly. This isn't the stress from last night, or the confusion. This is something else, and he doesn't like it. He doesn't suspect that she's a psychic. He's met a few in his lifetime, and she doesn't give off that same aura, that unique _something_ that's indescribable, that all psychics have, even the faceless one from last night – a certain level of control that transcends average human existence. She's a normal, regular, lower-than-him-on-the-food-chain human being, but she's playing him somehow, and expertly so.

Sebastian tosses on his jeans, doing up the buttons on the fly quickly. He grabs the first shirt that calls to him and yanks it off the hanger.

A blue polo. He can feel the color with his hand, and it comforts him. He's drawn to it – drawn to this shade of lapis blue.

"I _like_ your enthusiasm," she says, patting him on the butt as she heads out past him toward the hallway.

"Well, you know, I'm starving, too," Sebastian comments, keeping an eye on her as she saunters down the hallway, strutting like she owns the place. She circles the coffee table, grabbing her motorcycle helmet off the couch. He watches her dark eyes absorb the details of the room – specifically the address label of the Brooks Brothers catalog he left by the television remote.

 _Fuckity fuck fuck fuck!_ Why didn't he have her take him to a hotel?

Because he's never had to second guess a one-night stand like this before, and he swears to himself – never again.

Sebastian rushes to follow her out, slipping his feet into a pair of boat shoes waiting for him by the front door.

"So…any idea where you want to go eat?" Sebastian asks, though he doesn't really care. Now that they're outside, he's looking to ditch her on the A.S.A.P. Likewise, she seems distracted, like she might be contemplating the same exact thing. Sebastian hopes it's that easy. She looks down at her watch, and then over at her motorcycle, parked by the curb. Maybe she'll change her mind, hop on her bike, and jet out before they get too far from his place.

Then he can make plans to move.

 _It's wearing off. I know it's wearing off. Where the fuck are you?_

Sebastian hears her thought in his head and he knows. Whatever she did that blocked his entry into her brain is only temporary. He still doesn't know what it is, but it's disappearing.

"Oh, I don't know," she says, her mask of sensual cool dissipating. Her eyes dart here and there, as if she's expecting something to happen – or hoping for something.

 _Mayday! Mayday! Yogi, I have your Meerkat. Where the fuck are you?_

"Yogi?" Sebastian blurts, and the woman freezes. She looks in his eyes and laughs nervously, her arms winding around his, locking him by her side.

"Wh-what?" she asks, struggling to keep her mind blank. Sebastian revisits her thought, scrunching his nose as it repeats in his head.

"Meerkat!?"

"Good afternoon, lady and gentleman." The interruption of a man's voice stops Sebastian walking. The woman relaxes, her face lighting up, and before Sebastian can become savvy to the situation unfolding, two men approach – a husky, sandy haired man dressed in tan khakis and a button-down red plaid shirt, and another, leaner man, his brown hair shaved close to his head, wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt, layered underneath a black button-down.

Sebastian wants to comment, because this man is trying a little too hard with the whole thug motif, but he decides it might be wiser to keep his mouth shut.

"Mr. Smythe. Mr. Sebastian Smythe," the man in the red plaid shirt says, and it doesn't sound like he's asking.

"Uh, no," Sebastian answers quickly. "I'm not. We look a lot alike. Happens all the time. The man you're looking for lives…"

"No, actually, we know it's you, _Sebastian_ ," the man with the shaved head says, looking past Sebastian at the brunette on his arm. "Hey, Santana. You have fun?"

"Loads," she says, leaving Sebastian's side. She raises herself up on to the balls of her feet to peck a kiss to Sebastian's cheek, her smile inexplicably victorious. He glares down at her, his lip curling in a snarl. "Be careful with this one, Puckerman," she says, backing away. "He's not like the others. He's on to us."

Puckerman snorts a laugh. "Maybe you should have let _you-know-who_ handle him then."

"What?" she asks, looking playfully insulted. "And let that whiny ass have all the fun? Never."

"Bitch," Sebastian mutters under his breath.

"Bitch?" she repeats, mocking offense. "Wasn't it _Angel_ last night when I saved your ass?"

Sebastian wants to argue that it wasn't her that saved his ass at all, but he suddenly becomes protective of that secret voice. These goons found Sebastian, and Santana mentioned _others_ , so they're obviously targeting psychics. He doesn't want to show his gratitude by exposing this other person's existence to these cretins.

Unless that person's one of _them_.

"Aww, don't look like that," she says, patting his cheek. "Better them…" She jabs a thumb in the direction of the two men standing, waiting for this exchange to end, "than the assholes who were going to fit you with cement shoes last night."

"Thanks for the help, Tana," Puckerman says.

"Anytime." She gives Puckerman a kiss on the cheek, same as Sebastian. "And I mean it," she says, shooting a wink Sebastian's way. " _Any_ time." She reaches into her pocket for her keys and pulls out the chip from last night. She holds it up, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger. "Oh, and thanks for the tip."

Sebastian watches her climb on her bike. He can't help it. She might be a conniving snake, but there's no denying she has a gorgeous ass, especially stuffed inside those tight, tight jeans. But how did she get by him? How could he not read her? Did she slip him something? Something selective – not likely. He could read other people around them.

And that other voice. The one that saved him. He heard that.

With the roar of her bike's engine echoing down the street, Santana's gone, leaving these two men in his way, both staring at Sebastian strangely. Sebastian reaches out to touch their minds and finds the same exact thing as with Santana before. A void. Nothing. As if they're not even there.

"We're from McKinley University," Puckerman says. "I'm Noah Puckerman. He's Dave Karofsky. We've been hired to find you, and bring you back with us."

Sebastian holds his breath. _Bring him back?_

"Wait…did my mother hire you guys?" Sebastian jokes, stalling while he assesses his situation. There's no one on the street – odd for this time of day. No police officers around that he can see, and none that he can read with his mind. Not close enough to matter, anyway. "This is her way of getting me to go back to college, is that it?"

"Funny," Dave says, shaking his head. "But, no."

Sebastian trains his focus on Noah, whose eyes are just returning from watching Santana zoom away.

"You tappin' that?" Sebastian asks, trying to get him talking, to see if he can knock loose whatever the barrier between them is. Sebastian felt Santana's defenses start to crumble before she left. Sebastian uses that knowledge to pick away at this man's mental wall, but it doesn't budge.

Noah smirks. "I have, once or twice."

"Not now?" Sebastian tries again to see what the man is thinking, come up with what he's going to say before he says it. But no. Nothing.

"She's got a girlfriend." Noah shrugs. "They're engaged."

"That must suck." Sebastian probes deeper, and hits the same blockade each time.

"Nah," Noah says, gesturing to a car parked a few feet away with Dave holding the door open, waiting, "they buy me beers and invite me over to watch, so it's cool."

"Mr. Smythe," Dave says. "If you please, we're on a schedule."

Sebastian walks slowly up to the car and glances inside. It's a silver Lincoln MKS with midnight black tinted windows on all sides – not entirely street legal, so maybe that will attract some attention, but most likely not. This Lincoln's too impressive a car for cops to pull over unless Dave and Noah plan on doing something really off-the-wall, like planking out the windows or peeing on passersby.

 _Shit_.

There's no one else inside the vehicle that Sebastian can see, but still, he has a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach looking at it.

There's a lot of places for a person to disappear in the Nevada desert.

"You know, I'm not really cool with this," Sebastian says, taking a step back. "So I'm thinking, maybe you guys say you never found me, and I pay you each triple whatever you're being paid. Your girlfriend, too. Then we part as unlikely friends who never see one another again."

"I don't mean for this to sound sinister…" Noah says, mean mugging Sebastian, but he can't keep a straight face and he laughs. "Well, maybe I do. We've been given orders to bring you back, preferably conscious, but we've been granted the discretion to change our minds regarding that."

Sebastian looks at Noah, then at Dave, the burlier man curling his hands threateningly into fists, his biceps flexing beneath the sleeve of his shirt. Sebastian stares at the car and reluctantly climbs in. Whatever's about to happen, he wants to be conscious and aware, not knocked into a stupor by one of these Neanderthals and tossed into the trunk.

Sebastian settles into the back seat and moves to the center. Noah gets in the passenger seat and Dave the driver. Dave turns on the engines which automatically locks the doors. Sebastian leans over and gives the handle a pull, but the door lock doesn't open.

 _Child safety locks. Great._

"Am I being kidnapped?"

Dave and Noah share a significant look, but it's overshadowed by their amused expressions.

"I guess that depends on your definition of 'kidnapped'," Dave answers as he pulls out of the parking sport. "Technically, you got in the car of your own free will. We just haven't told you where you're going yet."

Sebastian tries to laugh that off, but he can't. After the guys at the casino, that phantom voice in his head, that girl he brought back to his apartment, and now these two yahoos, he feels like he's in an excessive amount of danger. He shifts in his seat, leaning back a bit, then sits straight up, not sure what image he wants to present. He's been trapped before, and he doesn't deal with being caged in very well.

"Hey," he says, addressing both men through the reflection of the rear view, "answer me something, would ya?"

Noah rolls his eyes, looking put out by Sebastian's request, so Dave answers. "I guess, if I can."

Sebastian takes one more stab at reading these guys' minds before he goes ahead with his question. "Am I in any danger?"

Noah looks at Dave, and Dave shakes his head, laughing. Noah takes a moment to share in his laugh before he turns back to Sebastian. "Not right now," he says. "Not from us."

Sebastian slinks down in his seat and stares out the window, at the trees and the buildings blurring by. He concentrates, tries one more time to reach his savior because God, he feels he can use one right about now.

He calls out for help, but he gets nothing.

Sebastian crosses his arms and squeezes himself a little.

 _Not right now. Not from us._

That's very reassuring.


	4. Chapter 3

**A/N:** _Warning for a mention of things that imply Finn though it's not directly stated._

"Did you watch the game last night?" Dave asks when they stop at the first red light.

"Duuuuuuude! Did you see that fumble?" Noah barks. "That was some fucking shit! What the fuck do they pay these players so much for if they can't handle the ball worth crap?"

"I'm guessing you lost money on that game?" Dave laughs - a laugh that could sound friendly if it didn't come from the mouth of a kidnapper and possible murderer.

"You bet your ass I did!" Noah says, smacking the dash in frustration. "Ten motherfucking grand."

"Jesus Christ." Dave shakes his head in disapproval. "You got a kid, man. What the fuck you bettin' ten grand on a stupid game for?"

"I've got to have something to put in her college fund," Noah argues, tapping out a beat on the dash with his fingers. "Did you not see the point spread on that game? I would have made a killing if the Buccaneers had actually won." Dave glares at Noah's drumming fingers, but Noah doesn't stop. The light turns green and Dave has to let it go.

"Have you ever thought about _investing_ your money, man?" Dave asks, stopping at another red light not three blocks away from the first one. "Mutual funds? Bonds? A 529 account? Something with low risk and a moderate yield. That's how you make your money." Noah stares at Dave with a look of confusion. "At least get yourself a goddamned life insurance policy."

"Low risk? Moderate yield?" Noah throws back at him. "Are you even listening to yourself, Karofsky? Aren't you the guy who took a dive during a _championship_ game for a lousy thirty grand?"

"That was a long time ago, Puck," Dave says.

"But you did it." Noah chuckles. "I may not be good with money, but at least _I_ never threw a game."

"Yeah, I did it," Dave admits, but he doesn't seem too comfortable with it. "I threw that game. And I took that money, combined it with my trust fund, made some smart investments, diversified my portfolio, and now I'm basically living off the interest." Dave straightens in his seat. "That's the _smart_ thing to do."

"Even if you don't get to play ball no more?" Noah asks sarcastically.

Dave straightens again in the same uneasy way. "That's right."

"Right." Noah smirks. "So if you're not doing this job for the money, you're here because…"

Dave's eyes flick to the rearview and lock on Sebastian's face for a split second before focusing on the road.

"I'm doing a favor," Dave says, "for a friend. Same as you. So you don't get to act all high and mighty. Got it?"

Sebastian raises a brow at that remark, but when Noah turns and stares him down, Sebastian shifts his gaze back out the window. The two men in the front seats go back to jawing about inane bullshit, and Sebastian goes about the business of coming up with an escape plan. Sebastian has it figured that whatever these men are using to keep him out of their heads will work for at least twenty-four hours. After one last attempt at reading their minds fails, he blocks out their conversation and concentrates on where they're headed, projecting what he sees, keeping his mind open in case someone – anyone – contacts him back.

The trees and familiar buildings turn into highway, and highway turns into a two lane stretch of desolate Interstate that runs through the desert with absolutely nothing to look at on either side - no businesses, no gas stations, no houses, no cars. In other words, a perfect place to hide a body. Isn't that the old Vegas joke? How more people are buried in the desert than actually live in the city? Even Sebastian has laughed it off a few times during tense conversations with bouncers and security guards and other guys that Sebastian knew weren't shit.

Knew because he could read their minds, see their decisions. But he doesn't have that advantage here. Locked in the back seat of this Lincoln MKS, held captive by two ex-jocks with massive inferiority complexes, being driven to God knows where, those jokes don't seem funny anymore, and Sebastian starts feeling overwhelmingly claustrophobic. He needs to find a way out of this car and fast. He feels around his pockets for his cell phone. It'll be a gamble using it in the desert. He might not get a reliable signal, but if he can hit the emergency call button app he has, he might be able to…

He pats down his pant legs, careful not to attract attention. Two attempts later, he drops his head back and groans.

He doesn't have his fucking phone. He threw it and left it on the living room floor, then forgot to pick it up in his eagerness to be rid of Santana.

 _Fuck_.

"What's wrong with _you_?" Noah asks, turning only halfway to talk to Sebastian and looking irritated at having to do _that_ much.

Sebastian looks at Noah, ready to tell him the truth. Why not? What does it matter anyway? "Uh…" Out the front windshield, Sebastian spots a lone gas station up ahead on their left, approaching fast, and hatches a plan. He can't run away from here. They're too far from the city. But if that gas station has a phone…

"Can we stop at that gas station?" Sebastian asks, locking his legs tight together. "I have to pee."

"You can hold it," Noah says, turning back around in his seat.

"No, I can't," Sebastian says, fidgeting, vying for believability. "I drank a whole bottle of Evian before you guys picked me up. It was _cold_ , too." Sebastian shivers for effect, but the two men don't respond, and Sebastian watches with dismay as the gas station passes by. "Come on, guys," he begs, knowing that the odds of them turning around are slim. "If you don't stop, I'm going to make a huge mess back here."

"Go ahead," Dave says with an unimpressed grin. "It's a rental."

Sebastian jerks back, slapped by the irony.

"You're really going to make me wet my pants?" Sebastian persists, trying to appeal to whatever sense of decency they may have.

Noah starts up with his drumming fingers, blatantly ignoring Sebastian, but Dave sighs.

"Nah, man. Here." He reaches underneath his seat, then hands Sebastian a red and white plastic Slushie cup. "Use this."

Sebastian stares at the cup, trying to determine if the hulking man is serious.

"Don't worry," Dave says, blindly placing the cup on Sebastian's leg, which rolls into his lap. "We won't look."

Noah hasn't started laughing at him, so Sebastian can only conclude that Dave _is_ serious. Sebastian looks at the cup in his lap and wonders how many times it might have been used as a portable urinal already.

"Uh…" He picks up the cup by the lip using two fingertips and hands it back, wiping his fingers on the seat beside him when he's free of it. "No thanks."

"Alright," Dave says, sticking the cup back under his seat. "Don't say we didn't offer."

"I won't," Sebastian says, realizing that he might very well get murdered by two of the most asinine men on the planet. If it wasn't for the fear of death looming over his head (regardless of what they said before about him not being in danger from them, which implies he might still be in danger from _someone_ , someone who can probably call them at any moment and tell them to slit his throat and roll him out of the moving car) this might be funny, like being stuck in a Tex Avery cartoon.

They don't drive straight through the desert, and they don't drive for long. They get off the highway about an hour later in a town called Mesquite. Looking out the window, still projecting his thoughts to a so-far-unresponsive universe, Sebastian observes that there's not much to it. The whole town takes up about a block-and-a-half of real estate, and is comprised mostly of a food market, a coin laundromat, a drug store, a 7-11, a bar, and a mom-and-pop hardware shop. At the far end of the block sits a sad little tourist trap that looks one day away from bankruptcy. A white-haired, grizzly man sits out front on a folding lawn chair - the metal rusted, broken straps from the seat hanging down beneath him - guarding a display of postcards fading in the sun. A handmade sign hanging in the window behind him reads, 'Sale! Everything 90% off!' written in black letters that get narrower the closer they get to the edge of the red poster paper.

"Quaint," Sebastian remarks, eying the aging store fronts and the equally aging customers walking languidly through the unforgiving desert heat – a heat he can see rising off the sidewalk from inside the air conditioned vehicle. "Rustic."

From the front seat, he hears Noah snort a laugh, and Sebastian relaxes a hair. Sebastian doesn't have any illusions that he's winning favors with this man. Noah most likely had the same impression when he first saw this shithole town. But it's a start.

They continue on through the town by way of the single main road, heading to the largest thing in sight, the thing that doubtless was the downfall of this small town – the McKinley College campus, its name prominently displayed, viewable from nearly any point in Mesquite, further adding insult to injury. They drive through its brick-and-wrought-iron threshold, and it's like they've driven into an alternate dimension, one where the dilapidated hamlet they passed is a bustling and thriving metropolis. The campus is enormous, and looks entirely self-contained. As they make their way through the grounds, Sebastian not only sees the requisite school buildings and dorms, but numerous fast food restaurants, several Starbucks, a Whole Foods Market, a movie theater, and what looks like it could be a night club and a bowling alley combined. It even has its own Walmart. And unlike the town outside its borders, the campus has trees and grass growing on its grounds, and a breeze blows here that doesn't exist beyond its walls.

"So would this be Narnia," Sebastian asks, "or Brigadoon?"

"Briga-what?" Noah asks while Dave laughs, having caught the reference.

"It's a helluva thing, isn't it?" Dave asks rhetorically, pulling the car up to a red brick building that looks taller and older than most of the others – so much so that it sticks out like an eyesore even though it's actually quite beautiful. Looking around, Sebastian doesn't see another one like it. He guesses that makes this the foundation building - the original building this college was built around.

"What's the story here?" Sebastian asks. "Why is the college doing so well and the town down for the count?" Sebastian doesn't really care, except he needs information, since it appears they've reached a supposed destination. Not knowing what he can expect once he's inside these walls has become maddening for him. He reaches out with his mind to find answers, only hitting upon the typical chatter of college students, worried about classes, exams, assignments, financial aid, hook ups…

"The people of Mesquite weren't really open to the idea of a college being built," Dave explains. "They were concerned about an increase in traffic, and tourists ruining their peace and quiet. They decided in the planning stages that they'd have no part in making the students or faculty here feel welcome, regardless of the boon to their community." Dave puts the car in park and shuts off the engine. "They wouldn't allow expansion within city limits, so the college bought the land exactly one inch outside city limits and made the campus into its own city. Now the town outside's suffering." Dave shrugs. The plight of Mesquite obviously doesn't concern him.

"Fascinating," Sebastian says, stepping out of the car when Noah opens the door for him. Sebastian stands up straight and stretches, lengthens his back, feels his stiff muscles unwind. It feels good to stand up again. "Can I go to the bathroom _now_?" He's not at all surprised when Dave gives him an unamused look and points to the building ahead. The men flank Sebastian, Noah ahead and Dave behind, as they walk up the four steps to the front door. This building, labeled 'Figgins Hall' with a brass plaque over the door, doesn't seem like it's open to the general student populous, signified by its electronic door lock and two security cameras pointing down at the entrance. The cameras are subtle, but Sebastian has seen plenty of hidden cameras at the casinos to notice the telltale holes in the mortar and the glimmer as sunlight bounces of the smoky glass lenses.

Noah punches in the code. Sebastian watches surreptitiously, trying to catch the numbers he's entering, but he goes too fast, his palm covering the keypad as he types. The lock beeps, a green light flashes, and something metallic clicks. Noah turns the knob and opens the door. They walk through the doorway into a lobby. A single desk fills a corner of the space, with wooden chairs lining the opposite wall, and an end table wedged between the third and fourth chair, its top littered with magazines – _People_ , _Time_ , _National Geographic_ , typical waiting room fare. Behind the desk, a woman with long, black hair sits, waiting as if her only purpose is to greet whoever walks through that door. Sebastian peeks at her desk where her hands are folded. There's literally nothing else on it but her folded hands, an electronic device, and a square cup of pencils.

"Hey, Tina," Dave says. "How's it going?"

"Hey," she says back. "It's going good." She looks at Noah, and then at Sebastian, surveying him up and down with a smile on her face. "You gentlemen need to sign in." She pushes the electronic pad toward them with one hand, and with the other, reaches below her desk and rests it there, with her fingers clenched around something concealed from view.

Sebastian touches her mind, but he doesn't need to. Without reading her thoughts, Sebastian knows there's something else at that desk with her.

A gun, and it's pointed right at his femoral artery.

"Yeah, yeah, we know the drill," Noah says, giving her a playful wink. He picks up the stylus and scrawls his name. Then he puts his thumb print beside it, and the device captures it. Both the signature and the thumb print disappear from the screen, and the device makes a chipper beeping noise. Dave takes the stylus and does the same. When he's done, he holds the stylus out to Sebastian, but Sebastian puts up both hands.

"I didn't even want to come here, remember?" he says. "I'm not giving you guys nothing."

"Whatever," Dave says, replacing the stylus. "The guys in charge know you're here."

 _Guys? More than one?_

Dave takes his position behind Sebastian as they walk toward another door, with another keypad lock and another hidden camera. The amount of security surrounding this one building has Sebastian sweating beneath his blue polo – the one he wore specifically for luck. The door slides open at their approach and they walk through.

This part of the building, wherever they are, is markedly different from the front – newer looking, like a recent addition. The lobby where Tina sits with her electronic capture pad and her Glock 43, resembles the entryway to any school or office building, with stained wood walls, brown and beige striped olefin carpet floors, and framed motivational prints spouting helpful phrases such as _Mistakes are proof that you are trying_ and _Don't stop when you are tired, stop when you are done_ , the words set beneath picturesque landscapes, giant redwoods, and rolling meadows.

The white painted hallway they're walking has a row of thick, tinted, possibly bullet-proof windows to the right, and several versions of the same two-paneled door on the left. Noah and Dave walk Sebastian to the end of the hall. It continues off to the left with an emergency exit straight ahead, but they stop at a solitary office door on the right.

Emergency exit. Sebastian tucks that information away for later.

Noah turns the knob and pushes the door, letting it swing open, then steps back to let Sebastian inside.

"Stay in here, sit tight, and don't touch _anything,"_ Dave stresses. "Someone will be with you in a minute." Dave and Noah leave, and Dave shuts the door behind them. From the change in air pressure, Sebastian assumes that the room is enforced in some way, so yelling for help will do nothing. No one will hear him. Sebastian turns in a circle. From what he can see, he's completely alone.

Which, from experience, means he's _not_ alone.

He tries the door, but Dave locked it. Sebastian knew that he would, but it never hurts to try. The same thick windows that line the hallway are present in this office. Two of them. He walks over to them and fiddles with the catch, but they, too, are locked.

Sebastian turns in place again and does a more thorough look around, taking an inventory of the items he sees, trying to profile their owner.

A mahogany desk – mildly pretentious, but as the furniture out front seems to be mahogany, Sebastian doesn't think it's the fault of the occupant. File folders cover the blotter, some stacked neatly, some spread around, but not chaotically, not disorganized. Compared to the neat state of the rest of the room, this smidgen of disorder may indicate that whoever spends their time in here might have found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly overworked. Sebastian is curious as hell to open one of the files and peek inside, but he's warded off by a bizarre assortment of drawings of a strange snake/man thing. Even two-dimensional and hastily drawn, the monster looks dangerous, venomous, sharp teeth bared, red eyes staring at Sebastian, tracking him as he walks toward it, the rattle at the end of its pointed green tail Sebastian hears clattering in his ears. The half-human creature is wearing jeans - ripped and blood-soaked jeans. Each picture is the same, the cobra-like beast with fangs bared, except in some of them, the remains of a dismembered body lay at its feet. The drawings, rendered sloppily in crayon (blue, green, red, and black), look like they were made by a child.

A _terrified_ child.

Sebastian reaches out to touch one of them, but his hand begins to shake, the prospect of putting a finger to those jagged, frightened marks filling him with a burning desire to run and hide. He forces himself forward, but a fantastic pain, like a crushing bite, spreads up to his elbow, and he yanks his hand away.

He can't touch the picture. Whatever fear lies within its lines is too powerful. He has to look away, physically remove himself before he becomes sick.

Sebastian wills his nausea away by targeting another prevalent feature in the room - books. All around him books. An obsessive multitude of books, which would make sense for a college professor, but then why is their office located here in no-man's land? Sebastian starts at the bookcase closest and browses the titles.

 _The Organized Mind._

 _The Social Animal._

 _Thinking, Fast and Slow._

 _The Power of Habit._

Every single one a book on psychology – either clinical, self-help, or text. In some cases, there is more than one copy, more than one edition, most with the spines creased, worn to splitting, white lines cutting through the words.

He moves to another shelf.

 _Encyclopedia of Sleep and Dreams._

 _Evolution of Sleep: Phylogenetic and Functional Perspectives._

 _Nightmares: The Science and Solution._

 _The New Science of Dreaming_ (volumes one, two, and three).

And on down the line, volume after volume of books on interpreting dreams, symbolism in dreams, the cause of dreams, the meanings behind dreams, the science of dreaming…and nightmares. The remaining books on that shelf are mainly about nightmares. In fact, three shelves below that one are devoted entirely to books about nightmares.

There are no pictures anywhere, but there are a number of certificates and diplomas awarded to a _K. E. Hummel –_ degrees and diplomas in Psychology, Consciousness and Transformative Studies, Human Development, Archetypal Mythology, Shamanic Traditions, Integral Life Spiritual Practice, and so on. Sebastian hasn't heard of most of these subjects, but they practically fill the whole wall.

Sebastian considers these clues and tries to piece together a picture of the person who owns this office, but so far he's coming up blank. He can't even nail down a gender. There are fresh flowers in vases on the bookcases and shelves – roses, peonies, lilies, full arrangements complete with baby's breath, a grafted cactus, an orchid wrapped around a hearty bamboo stem - which usually indicates female. Male professors, doctors, or whatever, usually stick to generic potted plants, the kind that don't require sunlight and rarely need to be watered. If they're really ambitious, they'll keep a radio tuned to classical music for the poor thing when they leave for the night, patting themselves on the back for embracing new age plant-care techniques. But flowers require commitment – changing water, cutting stems, adding food, rearranging blooms when they begin to droop. Flower ownership shows a level of care that most men don't bother with.

But there's also a touch of the masculine at play in the décor. An appreciation for sports seems to be one, with memorabilia displayed in spots where flowers are absent. A football in a rectangular glass case sits at an uncluttered corner of the desk. There's no autograph on it, so it's not a collector's piece. That would make it a game ball. A letterman's jacket hangs on a coat tree in the corner, which could belong to a woman, but she'd have to be huge, with arms the length of tree limbs and a torso to match. Beside it, there's a red football jersey mounted in an oversized frame, hanging on the wall.

 _5\. Hudson._

Then there are little touches here and there that might be considered ambiguous – a pair of red drumsticks wrapped in a black satin ribbon, a set of dog tags, a camo army helmet, an empty perfume atomizer of rose-colored glass, a plain brown baseball cap that looks eighty years older than God, a futon couch with a black cover, a large mirror in a gilded frame.

Sebastian glances over at another bookcase, one filled with CDs as well as books, and the lines blur a bit more.

He starts with the CDs.

"Patti LuPone? Barbra Streisand? Whitney Huston? _Wicked_? _A Chorus Line_? _Newsies_?"

And then the books.

 _Broadway: An Encyclopedia._

 _Patti LuPone: A Memoir._

 _Stephen Sondheim: A Life._

"Who the hell are you?" Sebastian laughs. He walks the perimeter of the room, noticing, not for the first time but more focused on them now, the art on the walls. There's a total of four significant pieces. They're not the original paintings, just prints under glass, but expensive prints, probably worth quite a bit of money. They remind Sebastian of the art one of his old mentors kept in his office, but these are of much better quality. Sebastian looks at the first print, the one closest to the door. It's a series of works by the artist Louis Wain. Sebastian actually knows these. He saw them at Dalton, during an elective class he took called "Art of the New". They had started studying Louis Wain right before Sebastian was pulled out of school for _testing_. Wain was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and painted cats at different points in his lucidity. They're bright and stylized, and somewhat hard to look at. The three displayed here run the gamut from mildly abstract to outrageous. Wain's paintings used to make Sebastian anxious, but for the moment, in context with everything else, they make him confused.

He moves on to the next print of a woman, sitting on a settee, looking out of an open window at the full moon. It's pretty self-explanatory, no interpretation needed, as it's labeled _Insomnia_ by John Hrehov. Sebastian wishes he had his phone on him so he could look up the story on this one. The picture should be soothing – the calm, dark, black of night blending smoothly into the cool silver of the moon should translate the quiet tranquility of night, but it doesn't do that for him.

It makes him feel melancholy. It makes him feel lonely. It fills him with a dread of being lost to the night that overshadows any semblance of peace this painting may contain.

The third painting is iconic, the image of a woman sleeping under the watchful eyes of a demon - a gruesome incubus - and a spectral horse. Sebastian had seen this painting once as a kid, at a museum in Stockholm. Experiencing it in person had him frightened out of his mind for weeks.

 _The Nightmare_ , by Johann Heinrich Fussli.

He still gets a chill looking at it. That horse for certain – the 'night mare' – its wide saucer eyes scouring the sleeping world for victims of its mindless and agonizing horror.

Sebastian first saw this painting around the same time he began to recognize his own power. It was also about the same time he learned to fear himself, and the things he could do without even thinking about them.

The last painting in this collection happens to be one of Sebastian's personal favorites.

 _The Sunflowers_ , by Vincent Van Gogh.

Sebastian takes his time appreciating this painting. It immediately makes him feel better, relieved, uplifted. His body's reaction flies at him like riding a rollercoaster, barreling through tunnels and turns at 100 miles per hour, and then having it come to a dead stop. He looks at the sunflowers, then back at the other three prints, and realizes that of all of them, this one doesn't fit. This Van Gogh was painted during his, "I eat yellow paint to make me feel happy," period, so it does display the same level of mental and emotional deviation as the rest of the images, but it represents a dynamic of _joie de vivre_ that the others don't. The other paintings are somber in their subject matter, forlorn, shocking, but not this one.

This one celebrates the beauty in life, despite the pain that goes with it.

And then there's the mirror. Sebastian didn't pay it much mind to begin with, but directly across the room, it reflects the sunflower painting instead of the windows - a situation that would make the room appear bigger, and make better use of the natural light. Putting the mirror across the room in order to see the painting from the desk seems redundant when the painting could have been put on the wall instead of the mirror, unless…

Sebastian walks up close to the mirror and examines it. He thought it might be two-way glass, but no. He's seen enough two-way glass to know this isn't it.

He walks back to the desk, keeping his eyes on the painting, and picks up a dry erase marker. He carries the marker back to the mirror, eyes glued to the reflection of the same spot on the painting, and starts writing on the reflective surface.

 _Can_

 _we_

 _get_

 _started_

 _please_

 _?_

Kurt grins and looks at Jesse standing behind him in the adjoining room, where a tiny camera inserted in the frame of the Van Gogh print records Sebastian's message on the mirror.

"I think your little friend knows we're here," Kurt says. "I have to say, for a psychic genius, it sure as hell took him long enough."

"Don't let that fool you," Jesse says, letting hubris win out over humility. "We left him alone for half-an-hour with everything you own. He's probably got you all figured out by now."

"We'll see," Kurt says, straightening his tie and his jacket to conceal the fact that he didn't think about that, that Sebastian could probably get a read off him from every object in that room.

Though what he felt from those drawings on his desk – _that_ Kurt finds very interesting.

"Let's not keep him waiting. Let's go say hello." Jesse reaches for the door but Kurt beats him to it, blocking his exit. Jesse turns to him and frowns.

"It is _my_ office," Kurt says. "And besides, I _am_ the designated asshole wrangler, remember?" Kurt smiles warmly when Jesse's eyes become hard. "Go to the room. I'll bring him to you."

Being appointed chaperone isn't the only reason Kurt is eager to meet the elusive Mr. Sebastian Smythe, he's just not going to admit it. Not to his ex-lover, especially. Kurt brushes the sleeves to his jacket and pats his hair, fixing his appearance as he rushes to his office from the observation room next door. He runs his card key through the lock and opens the door in one swift move.

"Hello, Mr. Smythe," Kurt says, walking in authoritatively and extending a hand Sebastian's way. "I'm Dr. Kurt Hummel. Thank you for agreeing to come down here and meet with me."

Sebastian is about to comment about how he was actually kidnapped and driven there against his will, but he can see by the glimmer in Kurt's eyes – his _blue_ eyes - that he already knows all about that.

"Right," he says, taking Kurt's hand and shaking it. Kurt lets go, but Sebastian holds on longer, trying to read Kurt, and he gets what he expects. Nothing. But this man isn't a void to him. Sebastian gets many latent impressions from Dr. Kurt Hummel, the kind that are difficult to erase. This office belongs to him. He's touched everything in it. But his mind has a barricade around it, and that turned on feeling Sebastian had at the thought of his mysterious psychic savior returns with a vengeance, with blood from his brain exploring southern venues. "Would you like to give me an idea as to why I'm here?"

"To put it simply," Kurt says, taking back possession of his hand, "you have certain talents that we feel can be very helpful with the research we're doing here."

"Look," Sebastian says, rolling his eyes, "you can go call Hansel and Gretel to take me back to my place, because I hung up the psychic gig a long time ago."

"Yeah, that's not what I hear, Mr. Smythe," Kurt says slyly, gesturing Sebastian along as he heads for the door. Sebastian smiles, matching Kurt's smirk as he follows behind, ready to make his escape, but one glimpse of Kurt's long legs and the sway of his hips as he walks has Sebastian thinking that he doesn't have to be anywhere in a hurry. He could stick around for a while, find out what's going on.

"And that's another thing," Sebastian says, keeping Kurt's pace as they head down the hall, passed the emergency exit and his one visible break for freedom. "It's really no fair that you guys seem to know all about me, and yet I can't get a read off of a lot of you. Do you mind explaining that to me?"

"Explain _what_ to you?" Kurt asks, turning a corner.

"How come my abilities dropped off the radar there for, like, twenty four hours? Did you guys roofie me or something?"

"No," Kurt says with a smug head shake. "It's a neuro blocker, and it wasn't on you. It's a dermal patch that our people wear to combat your abilities."

Kurt smiles when Sebastian looks impressed.

"Would you mind cluing me in on how that works exactly?"

"It's classified," Kurt says, winking, a tad too flirty. He directs Sebastian around another corner, down another hallway. "Sorry, but I can't have you figuring a way around my tech."

 _Ah_ , Sebastian thinks. _There is a way around it._

" _Your_ tech?" Sebastian asks.

"I developed it myself," Kurt says, turning down yet another plain, featureless hallway. "Took years to develop it, but with the help of other psychics we have working in our program, I was able to make it a reality." Kurt feels tension amid the silence and turns to see Sebastian's face go blank. "Yes, we have other psychics working with us here. I'm sorry. You're not going to be the special snowflake. I hope that doesn't bother you."

Sebastian doesn't know exactly why, but he feels a hint of a lie in Kurt's words. But what that lie surrounds, Kurt shields too well.

"Not at all. It's nice to know that the peasants can be of use. Are they volunteers, too?" Sebastian pries, hoping to get a read off Kurt the old fashioned way - interrogation. "Or did you sic your nympho decoy on them, too?"

"Don't blame us for what happened," Kurt says in a condescending but snappish way. "You might not have been so easy to catch if you were a little more, shall we say, _discreet_ about how you live your life. FYI, you didn't _have_ to take her home with you."

 _Bitch_.

The word comes out of nowhere, and it brings a smile to Sebastian's face. He's not entirely certain, but he swears Kurt's is the voice he heard in his head before – the same pitch, but not as distorted. It would explain how his inability to read Kurt's mind feels different than it had with Santana, Noah, and Dave.

"Hey, if it wasn't her, it would have been some other woman…or man," Sebastian adds to see how Kurt will react. But the man must play poker on the side because his face stays remarkably impassive. Nothing about his expression changes. Except maybe his eyes. They darken enough to tip Sebastian off. "She just happened to catch my eye."

"Really?" Kurt says, again with no change. "And how exactly did she do that?"

"Because she was the hottest thing on two legs," Sebastian answers truthfully. "Don't get me wrong, I hate her guts, but I wouldn't have minded hitting that a second time. Kind of a kick in the nuts to find out that she's one of you guys."

"Not one of us," Kurt quickly corrects.

 _At least, not one like me._

Sebastian hears it again – faint, like the words are being spoken at a distance, but yeah. That has to be it. Kurt has to be the voice. Which means he's…

"But, yeah," Kurt continues, "the higher ups figured you'd _enjoy_ her."

Sebastian chuckles. "You don't sound like you approve."

"I don't approve of a lot of things, Mr. Smythe," Kurt says, leading Sebastian to a metal door, "but that doesn't mean I let it get in the way of what's important." Sebastian watches Kurt pull out a key card and slide it through a security panel.

"And what's important?" Sebastian asks, genuinely curious. "To you, I mean?"

The change in tone of Sebastian's voice turns Kurt's head.

"The work that we do here, Mr. Smythe. Helping people. _That's_ important."

"And how do you help people here?" Sebastian asks.

"Sleep therapy," Kurt says. "We're studying people's dreams." Kurt presses a button on the security panel and the metal door slides open. He walks through, beckoning Sebastian to follow. They enter a narrow control room, invisible from the hallway. It's oppressively bright, with stark white walls, white tile floors, and white acoustical panels on the ceiling holding up rows of white metal track lighting. Sebastian's corneas burn looking at it. Longer than five minutes in this room and he knows he'd go mad. Three men sit in front of a wall of monitors, each monitor showing a person asleep – some from close up, some from a distance, the images switching back and forth between different views.

"Hey, guys," Kurt says to the men watching the screens, who occasionally make notes on tablets when a person on-screen rolls over, whimpers, or snores. "How you holding up?"

One man in particular – younger than Kurt, with a mess of sandy blond hair, light green eyes, and a tremendous mouth – looks up at Kurt with a fond smile that takes up most of his face. This man Sebastian doesn't have to read to know what's on his mind. It's written on his face, in his smile, in his blush, in the rapid blinking of his eyes.

"A-ok so far, Dr. Hummel," the man says. "Can't wait to get a break though."

"Don't worry, Sam," Kurt says, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I've got pizza coming."

A murmur of gratitude rises from the three men together, but in Sam's brain, Sebastian catches a glimpse of what has to be a fantasy – of him and Kurt in a supply closet somewhere, the lights turned off, the door locked from the inside, kissing, Kurt's legs wrapped around Sam's waist, moaning when his lips touch Kurt's skin.

Kurt's head pops up and he fixes Sebastian with a stern look.

"Show some respect, Mr. Smythe," is all he says. With a pat on Sam's shoulder, Kurt leads Sebastian out of the room. "If you join our project, you're going to have to learn some self-control," Kurt scolds as soon as the door closes behind them. "I don't want to put neuro blockers on everyone. It'll eat up all our funding."

"Sorry, doc," Sebastian says, grinning like a Cheshire cat, "but I've never heard those words in the same sentence together before. And okay, you have to tell me how you do that. Are you a psychic, too? You kind of feel like a psychic."

"I'm an empath," Kurt says, a dot of color rising to his cheeks at the comment he _feels like a psychic_. Kurt knows what Sebastian means, but it sounds suggestive coming from his mouth. "I can interpret feelings, hear thoughts every so often. Sometimes I can communicate, but only passively."

"Only passively?" Sebastian asks, implying he knows better.

"Yes," Kurt says, leaving no room for argument. This discussion is over, and Kurt's walls, however he's constructed them, don't come down. They leave the control room and walk out into another plain hallway. All these identical hallways are beginning to give Sebastian a major headache. "As I was saying, what we're doing is sleep therapy. Participants in our program are people who suffer from nightmares, with varying degrees of intensity. But the one thing our patients have in common is that their nightmares affect their everyday lives one way or another."

"But something tells me you're working toward a higher purpose," Sebastian deduces. "A greater good?"

Kurt nods. "My work targets a specific demographic, if that's what you're asking."

"And that demographic would be…" Sebastian presses. Kurt's expression becomes guarded.

"None of your concern, for the moment."

Sebastian knows there's something behind the words Kurt's saying, something about this project that he's protective of – something personal.

"Well, if I'm going to be working here…"

"Ah, but you haven't outright agreed to work here yet," Kurt points out, "and if you do, what you'll be doing is on a need-to-know basis. If you're not going to be staying with us, then you don't need to know."

Sebastian watches a man in a lab coat walk up to one of the rooms, slide his key into a security panel, and unlock the door.

"Is that what all the cloak-and-dagger's about?" Sebastian asks with hesitation. "The security keys, the cameras, the neuro blockers? Because I have to tell you, I've been in a place like this before, and it didn't go well for me."

Kurt's hard expression melts, recalling Jesse's account of Sebastian's days in lockdown, how he hated being caged, how they finally lost control of him when he felt so hemmed in he couldn't breathe.

Kurt's been in that position. He's felt that same way. The memories haunt him. They suffocate him, too.

"We like to keep things to ourselves," Kurt says with a reassuring smile. "That's all. For a little while longer, at least." Kurt moves a hand to touch Sebastian, but just as quickly pulls it back. He can't risk touching Sebastian. He can't risk anything that will open a gateway into his mind. "Regardless of our actions thus far, Sebastian, I can promise you that there are no prisoners here. You are free to come and go as you please."

"Where?" Sebastian asks with a bitter edge. "There's nothing around here but desert."

"We'll work with you," Kurt says. "I promise. It won't be like before."

Sebastian balks at Kurt's slip of the tongue. Sebastian knew that these people had something on him, but he didn't know how far their knowledge went. Now he knows exactly what he's facing, and it's worse than he thought.

But Kurt – if he is who Sebastian thinks he is - Sebastian has about half a dozen reasons to trust him already.

Kurt might be his only way out of this.

"So, uh, you monitor people in various sleep states?" Sebastian asks, switching the subject. "Then you what? Try to treat their nightmares? Get rid of their bad dreams?"

"In most cases, yes," Kurt says as they continue their tour. "But there are other areas of sleep research that we explore here."

"I can't imagine you guys get much money for that," Sebastian says, amazing Kurt by how quickly he recovers, the smirk he had lost reappearing on his face. "How do you fund Starship Valium?"

"There are some private companies that are very interested in our research," Kurt says, trying to stay vague. "Generous companies."

Sebastian refuses to leave it at that. "Like?"

"Mr. Smythe…" Kurt says, unable to quell his smile.

"Sebastian," Sebastian corrects, "and if you're not going to tell me everything, at least tell me enough to make an informed decision here."

Kurt sighs. It sounds like a reasonable request, but from what he's read about Sebastian in his files, Kurt knows there has to be something ulterior behind his thinking.

"Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, companies like those that make medications to treat erectile dysfunction."

"And how does your _sleep research_ apply to that?" Sebastian asks, his growing smile invading his voice.

They round another corner.

"We monitor our patients while they sleep in an effort to determine if the nature of their dysfunction is physical or psychological, and then we prescribe the proper mode of treatment," Kurt explains, trying to sound as professional as possible, knowing that Sebastian's waiting, looking for any way he can to turn the tables and make Kurt's research sound depraved.

"How do you tell which is which?" Sebastian asks, and does he actually sound interested? Or is this a game for him? Maybe it's both?

"If it's not physical," Kurt says, regretting the next part of his sentence before it even leaves his mouth, "then our patients will experience three to four erections during the course of the night."

Sebastian snickers, but cuts it off with a bite of his lip.

"So your job here is basically perving on people while they sleep and counting boners?" Sebastian teases. "Because if that's it, then I'm in. I'm totally down for counting boners."

Kurt stops walking, sighing internally, determined not to let his frustration (or his attraction for this man) show. Or his doubts that he didn't take on a challenge, but that he may have bitten off more than he can chew.

"I guess you could say that," Kurt says, rolling his eyes, "if you're a complete and utter ignoramus. Or twelve. Follow me. I'll take you to your room."

Sebastian puts out an arm, blocking Kurt before he can walk away.

"Like you said before, I haven't agreed to stay yet, doc," Sebastian says. "That is, unless, you care to join me in that room you're taking me to." Sebastian takes a step toward Kurt, closing the gap between them, a gap Kurt needs if he's going to continue keeping Sebastian out of his brain. "We can do some role-playing. You can be the doctor, and I'll be one of your patients, _desperately_ in need of…treatment."

Kurt crosses his arms over his chest.

"Are you always this pleasant to be around?" he asks, closing his eyes and tilting his head up to the ceiling in exasperation, trying to clear the static building up in his head from blocking this guy.

"Not always," Sebastian says. "Sometimes I'm downright obscene."

"Great," Kurt says, putting a hand to his head and rubbing his eyes, "between you and the crazy lady in the track suit, it's like I'm back in high school. All I need is for someone to throw a Slushie in my face and drop me into a fucking dumpster." He shoves Sebastian's arm out of his way and blows past, not even glancing behind to see if Sebastian is following.

"Ooo," Sebastian says, trailing behind, spending the next few seconds eying Kurt's ass as he walks away, "kinky. I like kinky."


End file.
